


Going Ghost

by stendahls



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 19:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18430460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stendahls/pseuds/stendahls
Summary: Ben's journey into the afterlife didn't go exactly as he had planned. Being a ghost sucked, but the fact that the only person who could see him was his lunatic of a brother sucked even more. Why couldn't he have just gone to hell?





	1. Not Like The Movies

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how many chapters this will have, but I promise there's more on the way!!!

Spending eternity with Klaus wasn’t even close to what Ben had pictured his afterlife being like.

He knew that ghosts exist, he did grow up with Klaus after all, but according to the spirits, the only reason they still roamed the earth was because they had unfinished business. With this in mind, Ben lived his life with the mindset that nothing would be left unfinished. In the event he met an untimely death he would pass peacefully on to heaven or hell and never have to look at the living world again. He lived his life cautiously, always keeping an apathetic mindset towards whatever life threw at him. He had actually begun thinking that way as a method to cope with committing mass slaughter at a young age, but avoiding becoming trapped on the mortal plane was a pleasant bonus. 

He kept himself small. Quiet, prepared, and out of sight. As a child he didn’t have much choice, their father had demanded obedience from them all, but he raised them each slightly different to encourage control over their powers. Allison was encouraged to be social, usually with Five and Diego. Luther was to have a stricter schedule than the rest, including shorter breaks and longer training hours. Klaus was to be kept alone, not as distant as Vanya, but still excluded from some activities, so he would be forced to acknowledge the spirits around him. Finally, Ben was to be kept quiet. He had never used his power on his family, but an abused child with arcane horrors living inside of his chest posed a very real danger to the people around him who got on his bad side. So Reginald taught him to be small. Don’t speak up, stay out of issues unless directly called upon, remain apathetic to those around you. All of the children were taught to distance themselves from others, shown how to strip away their humanity and see them solely as objects or targets, but Ben had this thought reinforced to him the most. It was required for him to be able to disable his emotions if he were to use his power. He was a killing machine, and their father never let him forget it.

So he took refuge in books. Stories meant everything to him. They were a silent wonderland, a world of beauty and magic he could travel to, far away from the terror of his real life, all while not making a sound. He learned to read fast, so he could find the time between training and missions. He learned to read thoroughly, so he could savor every part of the story before it ended. And when he came across something he couldn’t understand, he learned to search. It began by searching through the hefty dictionaries in the library, which led to reading the encyclopedias. Soon he became obsessed with acquiring knowledge. It was all he had, really. Any time he tried to get too close with his siblings, they shunned him, not out of fear of him but of fear for their father. He sometimes found comfort spending time with Luther, when he could get it. Reginald distanced him too. Ben and the others were consistently fed stories of how much Luther was growing to dislike them, how he knew his place as number one and cherished this superiority over his siblings, but Ben could tell it was a lie. He saw the same confused hurt in Luther’s eyes that he saw in his own, the hurt of being distanced from those around you, and gaslit to the point of questioning your own reality.

He found comfort with Five, although he was intimidated by him. Five was loud and aggressive, and it seemed that Reginald’s attempts to control him only stoked the fires of his anger. He commanded the conversation, spoke with a confidence that made it clear he wouldn’t hesitate to speak his mind, but he had a thirst for knowledge just like Ben. They bonded in the library, pouring over books as they swapped stories and vocabulary lessons. Diego joined them sometimes, and they would let him read to them so he could practice his speaking. It was annoying sometimes to listen to him take minutes to read a paragraph that Ben and Five could have read within seconds, but they knew he needed it, and they welcomed the chance to spend time together.

Ben didn’t get to spend much time with Allison. Reginald manufactured an elaborate social circle around her, encouraging her to love, hate, and envy whichever siblings he saw fit. Ben was one she envied. She pitied him, of course, but she made it no secret that she wished she could live like he did, alone and in peace. When they spent time together neither of them spoke much. Ben was intimidated by her, as he was by all his siblings, but he also knew she enjoyed the quiet. Sometimes they talked, but usually they would just sit near each other, her with a sketchbook, him with a novel, cherishing the silence until they were separated once again.

The only person he truly had a bad relationship with was Klaus. Klaus avoided him like the plague, in a way which was very much his own, including but not limited to dramatic sighs, eye rolls, and a hasty exit from any room Ben entered into. He understood why he hated him so much. He was still hurt, of course, but he understood. Ben’s specialty was blood, gore, and death, which only provided more ghosts to haunt and torture his brother. It didn’t help that Klaus was outgoing and talkative, much preferring to play games or sneak out of the house rather than sit quietly and read. Conversation between them was uncommon. Of course they spoke a bit, it’s impossible to avoid someone entirely when you’re being raised alongside them, but Klaus always kept his distance, and Ben didn’t try to close that gap himself. 

So when Ben died at the ripe old age of 20, he was ready. It was unexpected of course, he was in the middle of thrashing a group of bank robbers when one managed to scramble to a gun and shoot him in the side, but he had been waiting his entire life for this moment, and so he felt relatively calm as he bled out on the marble floor. Well, as calm as one could be as they were bleeding to death while watching their siblings fight a group of masked psychopaths, praying that they wouldn’t meet the same fate he was currently meeting. 

For a moment he didn’t say anything after he had collapsed to the ground. The thought flashed in his mind that he had only been shot in the right side of his torso. It was just below his lungs and just above his stomach, and people in movies got shot in the side all the time and turned out relatively okay. Certainly his siblings would get to him before he bled out from such a small wound. But after a few more moments he realized that he had been wrong about his assumption. The fight waged on, knives and bullets flew overhead as he let out a strangled cry for help. He had no blood in his mouth or throat, but he couldn’t breathe. His head felt so tight it might explode. He continued to scream, but he grew more faint each time, and the consistent firing of guns and echo of bullets drowned him out. Eventually he gave up, wrenching his eyes shut, biting his lip, and letting himself slip slowly into darkness.


	2. The Next Houdini

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben realizes exactly which afterlife he's gotten stuck in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is straight angst with a little bit of happy at the end, I promise after this there will be comfort and humor. I really don't want this fic to be 100% sad, but also it was really fun to explore writing such heavy emotions as this. Trigger warnings for grief, death, and very brief mention of suicide.

When he opened his eyes, he was standing above his own body. He watched with confusion as Diego came over and kicked him lightly in the leg. 

“Ben’s passed out,” he announced loudly, throwing his hands into the air with frustration. “Now we have to haul his ass back home.”

Ben tried to speak but realized he had no idea what to say. Was this even real? Maybe it was just the vestibule meant to lead him into heaven or hell. He looked around vigorously, searching for a bright white light or a fiery gate, or maybe a tall mysterious figure in black robes, beckoning him seductively with a scythe, but he saw nothing but the aftermath of a vicious firefight in a small midtown bank. That was okay, he could wait. The opening would show up eventually. After all, none of the ghosts who had confirmed the existence of higher planes had ever specified exactly what the time of death to portal opening ratio was. He stopped his searching and trained his eyes on his siblings, watching as they pulled themselves back together after the battle.

Allison was sitting on the floor nursing a newly formed black eye, loudly complaining about the asshole who had elbowed her in the face. Said asshole, Luther, was crouched next to her, vigorously spewing out apologies for mistaking her as one of the bandits. Klaus leaned against one of the teller’s counters as he sneakily pulled a small green pill out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. He grimaced, probably at the taste, and wobbled slightly as he attempted to stand up straight. 

Diego had taken the hand of Ben’s body as he began to ask Luther for help lifting his legs, but he stopped in his tracks, and the emotion on his face quickly fell from one of mild annoyance to one of pure panic. “Uhh, guys, Ben doesn’t look so hot,” He dropped to his knees as he said it, the terror in his eyes only growing as he realized that his brother wasn’t breathing. “Guys, Ben’s hurt bad!”

Luther and Allison ran over immediately, with Klaus following soon after, looking more disoriented than scared. Diego had begun frantically shaking the body, but was quickly scolded by his sister, “Stop! If he has a head injury you’re only hurting him!” Diego let go reluctantly and moved back slightly, making way for Allison to check for a pulse.

Ben, the version of him who was fully conscious and standing behind them, came to the conclusion that he had gone to hell. He closed his eyes, trying to block out his sibling’s growing shouts, and prayed that when he opened them he would be greeted by a beautiful angel, or an angry demon, or anything that could take him away from there. He didn’t want to see this. This wasn’t some peaceful transition into the great beyond like he had first expected, this was torture. It must be. Perhaps this was the punishment he received for all his sins. Perhaps the angel who could take him to the pearly gates was hiding somewhere just out of sight, laughing it’s ass off as he got his comeuppance. 

He opened his eyes and was brought back to the scene unfolding before him. It struck him as odd how different his sibling’s acted when they realized it was their brother who had died, as opposed to their brother getting wounded, or some random foe of theirs who had met an untimely death at their hands. It was like everyone’s roles reversed yet somehow managed to fit them perfectly.

Diego, always the first to take action, took his first action in the form of total collapse. When Allison looked up from the body and shook her head, he broke. It was visible on his face. His breathing quickened, his eyes widened, and he curled into himself, growing closer to the floor with each desperate gasp for air.

Klaus, always the first to panic, went into shock. He stood dumbfounded, half due to intoxication, half due to fear. His eyes grew distant and his body grew still, a stark contrast to his normal, almost comical, running around and screaming. Ben had never seen him like this. In some sick way it made him happy to know Klaus cared enough to be this upset. 

Allison, always the first to be obedient, took control of the situation. First she tried CPR, but halfway through realized that blood was still spilling out of a small puncture in his abdomen. She wasted no time doing what she did best, “I heard a rumor you came back to life.” She knew that wasn’t how it worked, everyone knew that wasn’t how it worked, but still she tried. She tried once, twice, three times, over and over, growing more incoherent with each slightly varied sentence, until the words were indistinguishable from her sobs.

Luther, always the first to be calm, grew furious. Ben was thoroughly surprised at his reaction. He had always maintained the patience of a saint, even when their father pushed him to his absolute limit, he remained too forgiving for his own good. But there he stood, fists clenched, jaw tightened so hard it looked as if his teeth might snap from the pressure. “Where’s the phone?” His voice was level when he spoke. The clarity of his words held the kind of calm that could only come from the effort to control a growing fury. When no one answered, his calm vanished, “I SAID WHERE IS THE PHONE?!”

This seemed to snap Diego out of his daze, and Ben watched as he drew in a deep breath, taking a single second to prepare himself as he stood up and leapt into action, joining Luther in giving orders. As much as they hated to admit it, they worked well together under pressure. Their opposing personalities provided the chance for them to fit together neatly, two puzzle pieces perfectly slotted together, each filling the gaps left by the other’s flaws. Too kind fit with too angry, too patient fit with too impulsive, too loyal fit with too rebellious. The only place they mirrored each other was in their love for those close to them and their desperate fear of being second best.

Ben didn’t think it possible, but he started to cry. It felt like normal crying. His eyes stung, his throat and nose seemed to close up, and he felt a sadness so deep it caused a physical pain, nearly as bad as the bullet wound he had been feeling only minutes earlier. Death wasn’t supposed to be like this. You weren’t supposed to keep hurting even after it was over. Yet here he was, all of his plans torn to shreds in front of him, all of his expectations crushed, and all of his siblings destroyed along with them. 

It wasn’t his fault. 

No one could be blamed just for dying.

He still felt guilty.

The next events were a blur. He followed himself, trailing behind his body, confused as to whether the grief he felt was for himself or for his siblings. He walked alongside the stretcher as they put him into the ambulance, watched the disappointment on the faces of the EMT’s as they realized he was a lost cause, and saw the tired resignation as they continued to try to revive him anyways, pulled along unwillingly by state laws and strict protocol. They looked relieved when they arrived at the hospital and the doctor announced his official time of death. The doctor looked distraught at the harsh cold of his father’s disinterested voice as he consented to a post-mortem examination, but Ben had expected nothing less. The autopsy was the second time he concluded he must have gone to hell, and the laying out of his body in the mortuary was the third. He sat in a barren and beige room for hours, completely alone, save for his body tucked in snugly on the hospital bed, his skin tone turning as white as the sheets with each passing minute. The fourth conclusion came when his father entered, gave a single disappointed glance and sigh, then quickly turned and exited. He looked little more than mildly annoyed.

Every time he thought he had accepted his fate, he saw something which forced him to reach that first conclusion over and over again. Conclusion five, listening to daytime radio talk shows on the ambulance ride to the funeral home. Conclusion six, the humiliation of the embalming. Conclusion seven, his siblings being scolded for crying at his wake. Conclusion eight, Diego screaming at Klaus for being too high to say any last words that made sense. Conclusion ten, Diego’s swift punishment for his outburst. Conclusions eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen; Luther apologizing to their father for crying, Allison expressing her misdirected disgust at Luther for his apology, Klaus taking an amount of pills he certainly knew could have killed him in plain view of their father, their father turning away with disinterest as he watched his son’s vague attempt at a possible suicide. 

Conclusion fifteen was when nearly everyone had left, except for Klaus, who had passed out on a nearby gravestone, and of course except for Ben, who sat cross legged on the freshly tilled dirt where his body lay beneath. This was the one where Klaus awoke with a start, screaming and scrambling backwards in fear from the general direction where Ben sat. The one where Klaus stood up on shaking legs, visibly barely holding back vomit, and exclaimed loudly, “I thought you were supposed to be dead?!”

Ben’s heart sank when he realized his previous conclusions had been wrong. He was in hell, certainly, but not one ruled by a disgraced angel and occupied by tiny servants of evil. He was in his own personal hell, and he addressed his own personal devil as he spoke, “Please don’t tell me you can see me right now.”

“I thought we just buried you? How did you climb out so fast?” A long moment passed, “Is this a magic trick?”

Conclusion fifteen was when Ben buried his face into his palms, half to express his frustration, and half to hide his relief that he wouldn’t have to go through this alone.


End file.
